AuthorTopic: HG612 Replacment (Read 1089 times)

I know this has been asked many times. I have a HG612 modem which is starting play up and i would like to replace this. I have seen lot's of posts about various zyxel and billion routers that are a good replacement but most of these seem to be old units which are hard to find in stock anywhere. Does anybody know of any other options which are current models.

I am on a ECI cabinet but seem to get better sync speeds when using a modem with a broadcom based chip. I would also like the option to be able to use DSLStats with it as well

I have half a dozen ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A units obtained from eBay and one from my ISP, AA; you can still see new boxed ones on eBay occasionally but they can be very expensive as they are highly prized. Although some of the prices are silly there are still bargains to be had. One tip is to broaden your search to the EU, several of my units have come from France and Germany. The other xxxx-B10A models will be better value, easier to find.

Btw, I’m using them all in ‘modem-only’ bridge mode, not as routers and I am aware of lots of bugs with the 1312-B10A when used as a router; bugs listed at support.aa.net.uk iirc.

I recommend the firmware built by our own forum member johnson if running in bridge mode as it offers MTU 1508 and various enhancements.

I tried a few ZyXEL's - I didn't find them any faster (in fact, they appear to be slower for me) than my HG612's - so I've still got those for now. However, these HG's are nearly 8 years old at this point, they're going to die one day...........

I didn’t really find my ZyXEL to be faster than the previous modems I had been using, the DLink DSL-320B-Z1; in fact the ZyXELs’ upstream was slightly slower, which is annoying, until very recently when the upstream speeds have all increased post lightning damage. But the ZyXELs are more stable, as the Dlinks would go down to very low downstream SNRM values, such as 1.8dB or even less, rather than sticking to the assigned 3dB d/s target. With the Dlinks, wandering off on a voyage all the way down to 0.8 dB downstream without authorisation was not unheard of. But anyway, if the d/s SNRM value were adjusted to be the same, then the ZyXEL modems would be faster. The other advantage of the ZyXEL is its support for the Broadcom PhyR - proprietary G.INP - L2 retx protocol for ADSL2. They’re just extremely stable. Some times they do get amazing downstream sync rates on ADSL2.

I have 7km long ADSL2 lines, your circumstances are rather different from mine though so the ZyXELs might be better, might be worse.

I have half a dozen ZyXEL VMG 1312-B10A units obtained from eBay and one from my ISP, AA; you can still see new boxed ones on eBay occasionally but they can be very expensive as they are highly prized. Although some of the prices are silly there are still bargains to be had. One tip is to broaden your search to the EU, several of my units have come from France and Germany. The other xxxx-B10A models will be better value, easier to find.

Btw, I’m using them all in ‘modem-only’ bridge mode, not as routers and I am aware of lots of bugs with the 1312-B10A when used as a router; bugs listed at support.aa.net.uk iirc.

I recommend the firmware built by our own forum member johnson if running in bridge mode as it offers MTU 1508 and various enhancements.

Thanks for the info i have manged to get hold of one of these now. The firmware you are using i have tried to locate but there seems to be so many posts on the subject. Do you know exatcly were i can find this?

I am pretty sure my first modern broadcom modem was faster than the hg612, an extra 2-3 meg sync or thereabouts if I remember right. All zyxel and the billion 8800nl sync very close to each other on DS speed, but US is different, as they have differe US power cutback characteristics, and also DS ES rate is different between the devices as well.